Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the nonprofits.
Speaker 2: For our second story this week, we're going to look
Speaker 2: on as America mourns the loss of its thirty ninth president.
Speaker 2: Eli Slack, the man with the plan, give us the
Speaker 2: loadown on this story.
Speaker 3: As Jimmy Carter's memorial service brought five living presidents together
Speaker 3: in a climate where bipartisan cooperation is increasingly rare, it
Speaker 3: forces us to reflect on the humility, integrity, and selflessness
Speaker 3: of Carter's presidency and life thereafter, compared to the egocentric,
Speaker 3: selfish political climate we find ourselves today. From as humanitarian
Speaker 3: work to his unassuming demeanor, Carter embodied a style of
Speaker 3: political leadership that today feels increasingly distant. Let's discuss and
Speaker 3: explore how his life and values challenge the current norms
Speaker 3: of political spectacle and reflect on what public public service
Speaker 3: should look like. This story is from AP News by
Speaker 3: Chris Magerian on January ninth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: All Right, Eli, thank you for that introduction. There.
Speaker 2: You're the youngest member on the panel tonight. What do
Speaker 2: you know about the life of Jimmy Carter and his
Speaker 2: presidency and how do you think that impacted young Americans?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Actually, so I didn't know anything about Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 3: I was born under Bush Senior, so I had to
Speaker 3: kind of learn about him.
Speaker 5: But I did like he.
Speaker 3: He apparently had the longest and most philanthropic post presidency
Speaker 3: of any president before or since. You know, of course
Speaker 3: the longest remained you know, still be well, we'll continue
Speaker 3: to be contested.
Speaker 5: But he, you know, he was a diplomatic champion of peace.
Speaker 3: He founded the Carter Center, which focuses on human rights,
Speaker 3: conflict resolution, and public health eradicating infectious diseases and mental health,
Speaker 3: so like helping provide access to that.
Speaker 5: He you know, they helped with.
Speaker 3: Hurricane relief, and he he just kind of remained like
Speaker 3: serving of the people that lived in his country for
Speaker 3: as long as he could. Sounds like as far as
Speaker 3: how far how he impacted other people, I honestly couldn't
Speaker 3: say how he impacted because I wasn't conscious of of
Speaker 3: these things he had done until now. So I'd have
Speaker 3: to go back and kind of extrapolate, like, Okay, well
Speaker 3: what you know stands now as a result of what
Speaker 3: helped with But I mean, definitely no small amount I
Speaker 3: would say.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Well, you might say that in a way, there
Speaker 2: wasn't really much impact.
Speaker 1: I mean, if it didn't.
Speaker 2: Register with you, I suppose there could be some things
Speaker 2: happening that you're not aware.
Speaker 5: Of and I just don't know the source yet, that's right.
Speaker 2: And it's not like young Americans are ever oblivious to
Speaker 2: things going on around them.
Speaker 1: Or anything like that.
Speaker 2: So you know, it doesn't happen right exactly, Chris, I
Speaker 2: want to jump over to you here. So it seems
Speaker 2: that Jimmy Carter was somewhat of an odd duck among
Speaker 2: American presidents.
Speaker 1: What sets him apart from the others.
Speaker 4: One of the things I think that set Jimmy Carter
Speaker 4: apart was that, you know, first of all, he was
Speaker 4: a peanut farmer. He was more of a down to
Speaker 4: earth person, I feel than most of the politicians still
Speaker 4: the word politicians are, and at the time, back in
Speaker 4: the day between his presidency and just before and then
Speaker 4: since then, a lot almost all of the politicians are
Speaker 4: businessmen or lawyers, some of this kind of from that
Speaker 4: kind of demographic. And yet Jimmy Carter had this soil
Speaker 4: of the earth, assault of the earth kind of way
Speaker 4: about him. And he was one of my earliest memories
Speaker 4: political memories from whenever I was a kid during the
Speaker 4: election of nineteen eighty telling you how old I am.
Speaker 4: Whenever Reagan beat Jimmy Carter for reelection, I believe that
Speaker 4: was the yes. I was down playing with some friends
Speaker 4: and whenever, though they're my friends, their parents found out
Speaker 4: that my mom was for Ronald Reagan. They sent us home.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't let it play with their kids anymore. That's
Speaker 4: one of my first memories. But you know that in
Speaker 4: my mind is a little kid. I'm like, Oh, Jimmy Carter,
Speaker 4: you know, But throughout the entirety of his life, I've
Speaker 4: seen him or my life, I've seen him just be
Speaker 4: This is probably the best place to say this, but
Speaker 4: an exemplary Christian, the idea of what a good a
Speaker 4: good Christian working for the community, being a person. Him
Speaker 4: and Dali parton, I think, or like the pinnacle of
Speaker 4: what a Christian should be. If if every other Christian
Speaker 4: followed them, we'd have such a better, better world.
Speaker 1: True enough, and arguments here and arguments here.
Speaker 2: I want to ask this of both of you here,
Speaker 2: and so let's let's shift the focus a little bit
Speaker 2: from from Jimmy Carter the man to to to the population,
Speaker 2: to all of us, right, And so we see a
Speaker 2: lot of people reacting to this news that he had
Speaker 2: passed on. Right, there's a lot of people. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of love and honor coming his way, but many
Speaker 2: people viewed him as inept and even harmful to the country.
Speaker 2: But despite those differences of opinion, we see that people
Speaker 2: from both sides of the aisle are praising the man
Speaker 2: after we passed. And that's actually really a very common phenomenon, right,
Speaker 2: Usually when when people die then you know, ever, but hey,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden loves them and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden everything that they did.
Speaker 1: You know, why do why do you guys think that
Speaker 1: we do this?
Speaker 2: Why why do we almost always forget the bad things
Speaker 2: that somebody uh from somebody that has recently died, and
Speaker 2: we remember and even enhance the good things. Let's start
Speaker 2: with Eli first. Why do you think that what's what's
Speaker 2: going on in our brain's there? And I understand that
Speaker 2: none of us are experts here, but but we can conjecture.
Speaker 5: Sure, I've read a little bit about this and and
Speaker 5: you kind of do this is similar thing like at
Speaker 5: the end of relationships, right, Like almost all relationships I
Speaker 5: mean all relationships that end like okay, not all, but
Speaker 5: like when when two people part ways at the one
Speaker 5: person's choice, it's never because like everything was great and
Speaker 5: you know, there was no problems and there was never
Speaker 5: any bad times. If you look back, you will see
Speaker 5: the bad times.
Speaker 3: But for that person that you know, perhaps was surprised
Speaker 3: or didn't choose, you know, was it didn't make the
Speaker 3: choice of far ways, they're going to forget about those
Speaker 3: things that you know they didn't quite you know, care
Speaker 3: about so much.
Speaker 5: And this is I mean, that's just sort of a
Speaker 5: thing that we do in human relationships.
Speaker 3: We just sort of have a tendency to see more
Speaker 3: good in people, uh for.
Speaker 5: In it not all the time, I guess. And I'm
Speaker 5: kind of like backtracking the way.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say.
Speaker 2: I can remember some pretty bad relationships in my life.
Speaker 3: Right, And it's sort of thing when we experience loss,
Speaker 3: I guess is what it is when when when we
Speaker 3: no longer have something, no longer have access to it,
Speaker 3: we started to be like, wait, wait, hold on, how
Speaker 3: does this effect like how is this gonna like.
Speaker 5: What's going to be different now?
Speaker 3: And then maybe that's more of what it is, like
Speaker 3: things are going to be different now, like it won't
Speaker 3: have this positive better I won't have this good benefit, you.
Speaker 5: Know, And it's it's more or less extreme to some
Speaker 5: degree for different people, I think in cases like this,
Speaker 5: Like for me, I heard like Jimmy Carry, I was like, oh,
Speaker 5: that was like one.
Speaker 3: Of the presidents, right, yeah, that's how old was he? Like,
Speaker 3: you know, that's sad, but it sounds like it was time.
Speaker 5: You know, it was pretty pretty old. So it's you know,
Speaker 5: but for some people, like it's it hits.
Speaker 3: A lot more heavily, So it's it's far be it
Speaker 3: for me to yet, Like you said, we're not experts.
Speaker 5: I'm just kind of conjecturing.
Speaker 2: Here, right right, right, Well, one hundred years is pretty
Speaker 2: pretty good run, I think.
Speaker 5: And then yeah, good on them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it was a swing in the hammer all
Speaker 2: those years or something, you know, it kept them, kept
Speaker 2: them youthful and invigorated.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's it. Maybe that all right?
Speaker 2: Well, the new Eli Slack Peanut Diet coming out next week, Chris,
Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1: White Why do you think?
Speaker 2: I mean, from what I'm gathering from what Eli was saying,
Speaker 2: is that maybe this is some kind of defense mechanism
Speaker 2: or something like that. I mean, does why do you
Speaker 2: think people are all of a sudden all rosy and peaches?
Speaker 1: Is that a phrase? Rosy and peaches?
Speaker 2: After somebody passes on and they and they have a
Speaker 2: tendency to forget about the bad stuff, you.
Speaker 4: Know that they're to be honest. There's a couple of
Speaker 4: things that I think about it. One of them is
Speaker 4: that it could be actually a reflection on us. It's
Speaker 4: less about that we want to make It's how we
Speaker 4: would want to be treated when we passed. When I
Speaker 4: pass I don't want you to remember the bad things
Speaker 4: about me. I want you to remember the good things
Speaker 4: that uphold them to me. I think that kind of
Speaker 4: has from my perspective, That's how I kind of feel
Speaker 4: about it. You know, whenever, whenever it happens, Mandeal, don't
Speaker 4: sit there about think about that one time you caught
Speaker 4: me on the camera and deep in my nose, talk
Speaker 4: about all the times we did good things and had
Speaker 4: you know, made good points and stuff like that. I
Speaker 4: think he kind of has that. It's as sad as
Speaker 4: it may seem. I feel it's a little bit of
Speaker 4: a narcissistic, selfish thing that we apply this to other people,
Speaker 4: even like the antagonist that Jimmy Carter had who didn't
Speaker 4: care for him necessarily during his presidency, and yet now
Speaker 4: are going, oh, he was a great man. I think
Speaker 4: it's kind of the same way. Whenever they pass despite
Speaker 4: however they engage with everyone else, they want people to
Speaker 4: gather around and go, he was a good guy.
Speaker 1: Oh. So, maybe it's a form of optimism.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's a form of wishful thinking or hope for
Speaker 2: the future or whatever. Oh okay, interesting, All right, Well
Speaker 2: I want to shift gears here. I'm going to stay
Speaker 2: with Chris on this question, but I want you to
Speaker 2: think about this. So, despite the long standing tradition of
Speaker 2: honoring deceased presidents by lowering flags on federal buildings to
Speaker 2: have staff for thirty days, Okay, that's the tradition, there
Speaker 2: are some that will be refusing to do so because
Speaker 2: of the inauguration of the incoming regime falls within that
Speaker 2: thirty day window.
Speaker 1: So my question is this.
Speaker 2: Just petty dick waving from either or both sides, or
Speaker 2: is it a reasonable accommodation. If it's the former, is
Speaker 2: it an indication that this is what American politics would
Speaker 2: be like from here on out.
Speaker 4: You know what, I think it's. I think it is petty.
Speaker 4: I think it's I think the incoming administration should see
Speaker 4: it as an honor. They should. They should lift up
Speaker 4: everything they can about Jimmy Carter and embrace it all
Speaker 4: and go, hey, there's a brother in arms has fallen
Speaker 4: and I'm coming into office, and I'm honored to have
Speaker 4: my inauguration flag flag staff. The part of the deal
Speaker 4: is the narcissistem of this particular individual. It takes the
Speaker 4: light away from him, right, and therefore, you know he
Speaker 4: doesn't like it. One of the things he already didn't
Speaker 4: like them. My understanding, he didn't like the notion of
Speaker 4: a half flag half staff because of it. I don't know.
Speaker 4: He already didn't liked it for some reason. I don't
Speaker 4: remember what that particular reason was. Looks bad like injured
Speaker 4: military people. He doesn't like them either, But I think
Speaker 4: that kind of has some more to do with it.
Speaker 4: He really should see it as an honor that he
Speaker 4: is bringing. He is taking the mantle at the same time,
Speaker 4: and should actually honor Jimmy Carter's legacy while he takes
Speaker 4: his own, make creates his own legacy. I think it's
Speaker 4: a missed opportunity.
Speaker 2: As as a tip of the hat or even a
Speaker 2: salute to the institution of the presidency.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think about that? Eli? Oh? Sorry finished,
Speaker 1: Chris Well.
Speaker 4: I was just gonna say yeah to the institution and
Speaker 4: of course to the man. You know, now, even Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: like you have been mentioning here, Donald Trump himself used
Speaker 4: to speak poorly of him, and now all of a
Speaker 4: sudden he's going to be be speaking well about him,
Speaker 4: and he's going to do all this stuff same thing,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: So, Eli, I want to put a slight little twist
Speaker 2: on the on the on the question there.
Speaker 1: So, do you think that this is being overplaced?
Speaker 2: Do you think that this little schism or whatever you're
Speaker 2: gonna call it, right, one group saying we want the
Speaker 2: flags that have staff, the other group saying no way.
Speaker 2: Do you think that that particular schism is being taken
Speaker 2: advantage of for political advantage or do you think that
Speaker 2: it's a legitimate squabble.
Speaker 3: I think that every disagreement that ever takes place within
Speaker 3: the halls of the federal government the United States is
Speaker 3: always being taken advantage of as much as possible at
Speaker 3: any given time.
Speaker 5: I think, I mean, you'll you see it all.
Speaker 3: The time when like there's like major news or major
Speaker 3: media coverage over some like you know, catastrophic event, and
Speaker 3: then you'll hear people talking about, like, hey, like in
Speaker 3: the meantime, Congress did this thing, and it turns out
Speaker 3: like you know, some new bill that has you know,
Speaker 3: maybe not passed yet but has some significant change or something,
Speaker 3: and like you start to consider like what things are
Speaker 3: distractions and what aren't, and it's almost like the more
Speaker 3: they can you start to think about how things are
Speaker 3: designed to sort of divide people that do have different beliefs,
Speaker 3: Like they're not only designed to be like, hey, this
Speaker 3: is why our belief is good.
Speaker 5: It's like this is why.
Speaker 3: Everybody who disagrees with you is like a horrid piece
Speaker 3: of shit and you should you.
Speaker 5: Know, like and like and why like bad things should
Speaker 5: have it? Yeah, like I should, but like why bad
Speaker 5: things are happening them. It's like it's it's the.
Speaker 3: Things are kind of being designed to divide people rather
Speaker 3: than just like educate them, like, hey.
Speaker 5: There's these are our beliefs.
Speaker 3: So that's just more like what they're kind of continuing
Speaker 3: to do as long as they can like blow it
Speaker 3: out of proportion and be like it's this this big
Speaker 3: of a deal and these people are stopping it or
Speaker 3: changing it. Then you know there's more division, more feel
Speaker 3: for that fire.
Speaker 1: So do you think it's just the nature of the beast.
Speaker 1: Then it's just.
Speaker 2: Part of politics as usual and this is just the
Speaker 2: next in line of the next thing that's being take
Speaker 2: miss you know, misused and taken advantage of for political gain.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't say part of politics in general, what I'd
Speaker 5: say part of USA incorporated. Yes, Okay, I think it
Speaker 5: kind of like just it.
Speaker 3: It's the way things are now, and it's just kind
Speaker 3: of becoming more and more apparent as as you know,
Speaker 3: each each week, at each each like new episode of nonprofits.
Speaker 4: Right, everything's a dog whistle, Right, everything is a dog
Speaker 4: whistle in the political sphere. Everything it's it's just like, oh,
Speaker 4: look at that, look at that, look at that. It's tiring.
Speaker 2: I wonder what that says about us as citizens, about
Speaker 2: about the targets of that of that show, right, or
Speaker 2: the audience for that particular show. If if I mean
Speaker 2: clearly that kind of thing works, I mean I mean
Speaker 2: clearly it's effective otherwise it would.
Speaker 1: Have been abandoned a long time ago.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, you know, I guess we're seems like we're
Speaker 2: kind of doomed to be on repeat of this kind
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 1: And this is just and you know, we'll see what
Speaker 1: happens next week.
Speaker 2: I guess I wanted to ask about a particular passage
Speaker 2: in the article that we read, and the passage says this,
Speaker 2: all politics were not left outside the cathedral, though Biden,
Speaker 2: who leaves office in eleven days, repeated several times that
Speaker 2: character was Carter's chief attribute. Biden said Carter taught him quote,
Speaker 2: everyone should be treated with dignity and respect. And so
Speaker 2: what stood out to me with that quote was not
Speaker 2: necessarily what was said. I mean, that was well within
Speaker 2: the bounds of what we would expect to hear, you know,
Speaker 2: in an event like this.
Speaker 1: But what stood out to me was the.
Speaker 2: Offhand, nonchalant way that they tied politics to everyone should
Speaker 2: be treated with dignity and respect. That they made that
Speaker 2: into a political position. They tied it to, you know,
Speaker 2: one side or the other. And and is that association fair?
Speaker 1: Is that fair?
Speaker 2: And if so, what does that say about politics in America?
Speaker 2: If we're taking, you know, moral characteristics and assigning them
Speaker 2: to one.
Speaker 1: Political party or the other. Chris, do you have any
Speaker 1: thoughts on that?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I kind of do. It does seem
Speaker 4: based whenever you we look I don't want to use
Speaker 4: the word objectively, but whenever you look at the methods
Speaker 4: used by the political party that Biden is actually referencing,
Speaker 4: you can kind of see where they're coming off. But
Speaker 4: that's only I mean. Whenever we look back at the
Speaker 4: history of American politics, there has been mudslinging since day one.
Speaker 4: We think, I think sometimes we as Americans. Maybe it's
Speaker 4: because of the way we learn about it in school.
Speaker 4: We think about the founding fathers and the politicians leading
Speaker 4: up to the eighteen hundreds and the nineteen hundreds as
Speaker 4: some sort of noble, glorious things. But when you go
Speaker 4: back and look at some of the things they did
Speaker 4: during their own camps or during their own presidencies. I mean, Johnson,
Speaker 4: when you've heard about Johnson, he will tell you about
Speaker 4: his Johnson because he did, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: There was a lot and when down that you don't
Speaker 4: really think about, you know, oh wow, Johnson was it?
Speaker 4: Teddy Roosevelt like to wear women's clothes and swim naked
Speaker 4: in the river behind the White House. People don't think
Speaker 4: about things like that. There's this, you know, But but
Speaker 4: nowadays we see our politicians in this stark Oh my goodness,
Speaker 4: I can't believe they did that or they said that.
Speaker 4: I think it kind of we forget those things. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I kind of feel because of my political bents, why
Speaker 4: Biden would say that. But really it's really just the
Speaker 4: one more touchet in a fencing match that has been
Speaker 4: going back for two hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 2: Right, right, Well, I suppose as atheists were used to
Speaker 2: being slandered and were used to being associated with these
Speaker 2: negative characteristics. Eli, do you see any comparison there between
Speaker 2: what's happening and I mean, is this just a different
Speaker 2: flavor of the type of discrimination that atheists and of
Speaker 2: course other minority groups experience, or is this is this
Speaker 2: intended either consciously or unconsciously to exacerbate the divide between
Speaker 2: us versus them?
Speaker 1: I guess is what I'm asking.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it is. If I would guess
Speaker 5: that it's intended to I think it could. I would
Speaker 5: agree that, you know, to associate the characteristic of like
Speaker 5: treating people with dignity with one like particular political abiliation.
Speaker 3: I guess I don't think that any any ideology, any
Speaker 3: group is a monolith. There are you know, people who
Speaker 3: have different stances on different topics for different reasons. So yeah,
Speaker 3: you're going to find people on either side of any
Speaker 3: given characteristic.
Speaker 5: That do and don't treat people with respected So yeah,
Speaker 5: if the implication is that you know, like unlike.
Speaker 3: Some people around here, then I think that's an unfairy
Speaker 3: I mean, you can say unlike some people, but like
Speaker 3: to categorize those.
Speaker 5: People as all one group I think would be a misstep,
Speaker 5: and it would be.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of a way of building yourself up
Speaker 2: by pushing someone else down, even though the things that
Speaker 2: you say are saying about the other kind of also
Speaker 2: applies to your group as well, right, I mean, so
Speaker 2: it's a human thing, not a Republican or a democrat thing,
Speaker 2: or not as a religious or atheist thing. It's just
Speaker 2: being human beings. That's what we do, and that this
Speaker 2: is just one way of doing it. Okay, All right, Well,
Speaker 2: I have the most important and most thought provoking question
Speaker 2: of the evening, right is coming out right now here
Speaker 2: it is, and we're going to start with Chris, what
Speaker 2: is your favorite food that features peanuts as the main ingredients?
Speaker 4: Oh? Okay, okay, I want to house a main ingredient.
Speaker 4: See I've been lining this up even getting okay.
Speaker 1: If you want to do it as a secondary.
Speaker 2: Ingredient, that's okay, thank you, Scott. You don't need to
Speaker 2: be super strict with that.
Speaker 4: I was going to go with a banana split, battle
Speaker 4: peanuts on top, cheese, some chili.
Speaker 1: Wait, hold on, I was with you there for a second.
Speaker 1: Please tell me you don't chili? Really?
Speaker 4: No? No, no, okay, all right, if you were paying attention.
Speaker 1: Well I was, but I was shocked. But that was
Speaker 1: that was close enough that I might have bought it.
Speaker 1: I might have bought it.
Speaker 4: I was selling it. I was a banana split. If
Speaker 4: you know, if you use to give me an option
Speaker 4: of anything with peanuts on it, bananas but would be
Speaker 4: the only thing.
Speaker 1: I think, right, Eli, what what's your favorite peanut dish?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go with the Reese's peanut butter cup strong.
Speaker 5: Like the extra peanut butter ones, the ones that are.
Speaker 1: You do like the extra peanut butter ones.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me ask you this, and this is
Speaker 2: of course another important question. What is the correct way
Speaker 2: of eating a Reese's peanut butter cup?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 6: I did, like, Yeah, it's it's like a hockey pucked
Speaker 6: like if you could, if you could hit them at
Speaker 6: my mouth with like, and I would just Yeah.
Speaker 2: However, however, I think you've just stumbled onto the next
Speaker 2: ACA fundraising event.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna have a dunk tank. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: a slapshot in the eli's face.
Speaker 3: Pat Maroon, formerly of the Sailoris, Blues to just slapstick
Speaker 3: friggain Reese's cups into my face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be awesome and horrifying at the same time.
Speaker 5: Yea life.
Speaker 2: My favorite peanut dish is a dish that I learned
Speaker 2: how to make when I was in the Peace Corn Africa.
Speaker 2: It's called domita and it's it's basically it's peanut stew
Speaker 2: and you make it with chicken and vegetables and chicken
Speaker 2: broth and an unsalted, unsweetened peanut butter and it's really
Speaker 2: super delicious. It was my favorite thing that I ate
Speaker 2: when I was over there.
Speaker 4: Are you making your own chili joke?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 4: Peanut butter and chicken. Then they'll sell, right.
Speaker 1: I'll make Chris.
Speaker 2: Next time you are in Minnesota, drop me a line,
Speaker 2: and I will make you some super delicious domita and
Speaker 2: it would be freaking awesome, all right, And if any
Speaker 2: of you want domita, well you're not going to get
Speaker 2: it here.